Cocoa Muffins

While waiting to pick Dallas up from Awanas Tuesday night, I checked a few new cookbooks out of the library. One promising book, Farmstead Chef, caught my eye and came home with me.

There are countless cookbooks out there and most are not the best home cook companions. If you find a book that is meant to cut costs, feed families or prep dinner ahead, you’ll find that most of the recipes are just junk. How many white pasta, marinara, cheese covered meals can one family eat in a month? According to these cookbooks, tons. Then there are the crop of cookbooks offering new and fresh recipes to liven up our palates. Open those books up and you’ll find plenty of recipes for eggplant reduced mango relish a top a bed of endive rolls with salmon pate’. You know, the stuff we eat every day. There is the Rachael Ray crop (35 hamburgers in 30 days) or the healthy bunch (all brown rice and broiled chicken, all the time)!

So far, I am loving this cookbook. Not every recipe is covered in marinara or uses 3 cups of white flour. I’m looking forward to sharing more of these recipes with you. Casablanca Couscous, Frozen Mochachinno and No Nead Dutch Oven Artisan Bread are all on the to be created list.

This morning, I flipped through the pages of the breakfast section, offering Dallas his choice of muffins. I could barely get the words, “Cocoa Muffins” out of my mouth before he could yell for me to stop talking! Cocoa Muffins it would be!

What I really like about this recipe is the use of cocoa powder, rather than chocolate chips or chocolate syrup. Cocoa powder on its own is a good thing, lots of antioxidants. The darker the powder, the better. While the muffins call for 1 1/2 cups of white flour, I swapped in 3/4 cups whole wheat flour and the taste did not change a bit. Next time I make these (and there will be a next time) I plan to try using whole wheat flour exclusively.

One cup of sugar is also called for. These muffins turned out nice and sweet, so I think the sugar could even be reduced to 3/4 cup. I used raw cane sugar, but I would be willing to bet honey or syrup would do the trick as well. One last substitution made happened when I switched out the vegetable oil for applesauce.

Even with all the swaps, these turned out very cake like in flavor, which always makes my kids happy (and me).

Lightly oil 12 muffin cups. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Fill muffin cups until almost full. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Once cool, dust with powdered sugar if desired.

Lightly oil 12 muffin cups. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Fill muffin cups until almost full. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Once cool, dust with powdered sugar if desired.

Let’s talk about my husband. This is Jy and Dallas in 2009. Cute, huh? He is great. He is a great dad, a great husband and a fantastic movie reviewer. He is so great, that he started his own facebook page called, Movie Fuel. Sound familiar? Ring any bells? Oh yeah, Thursdays are Movies & Munchies days aren’t they? So where is today’s M&M? Jy even watched The Rise of the Planet of the Apes this week. Here’s the plan folks, go to Movie Fuel’s Facebook page and tell him I sent ya.

I’m happy to learn of expanded coverage & outreach. Another important component of cost containment must be robust data mining to prevent abuses, For too long the spotlight has focused on inappropriate use of resources by patients and greed of providers, data mining can help focus on those with malicious intent profit improperly from the healthcare system.